


Immunity (or, Caring for your Sniffling Scientist)

by juxtapose



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4109875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juxtapose/pseuds/juxtapose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is immune to most weird happenings in Night Vale, except for when he isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immunity (or, Caring for your Sniffling Scientist)

**Author's Note:**

> This is your totally standard sick!fic, but my first one for this fandom. Enjoy!  
> DISCLAIMER: WTNV is owned by Commonplace Books/Joseph Fink/Jeffrey Cranor/not me.

Carlos really hoped he wouldn’t have to work from home tomorrow.

It wasn’t that he minded spending extra time with Cecil. In fact, spending time with Cecil was a thing he preferred to do on most days, if at all possible, especially since their jobs ran on such opposing schedules. But there was so much to do at the lab, and there were some test results waiting for him that he needed to analyze, and a few reports to write up, and—

 _Achoo_!

“Ugh.” Carlos rubbed his eyes and reached for an umpteenth tissue at the corner of his work desk. The world around him was blurry—and not the normal kind of Night Vale blurry where thought what was happening couldn’t possibly be happening and you couldn’t really be there. No, it was the blurriness of what was probably a low-grade fever combined with the fact that his eyes watered at random intervals.

To be fair, Carlos had been staying late at the lab a lot lately, and just last week one of the research assistants, Tay, had been sniffling every three minutes over a microscope (Carlos counted). Naturally, it was only a matter of time before Carlos himself succumbed to the inevitable, very human need for rest; and that time, apparently, was now.

He expected he’d probably have to quit working for the day. Rest up. Maybe curl up with his boyfriend and watch _Cat Ballou_ and turn in early, and ideally feel better tomorrow.

What he didn’t expect was the imminent reaction of one Cecil Gershwin Palmer.

He was sitting on the couch later that evening, scrolling through an e-mail from one of his coworkers on his iPad, when Cecil sashayed through their apartment door donning a typical work outfit consisting of a NVCR t-shirt, a black maxi skirt over skinny jeans, and a pair of polka-dotted Chucks.

“Hi Carlos! I figured we could order din—oh, my _God_. You look _awful_!”

Carlos opened his mouth to say something sarcastic like, “Thank you,” but before he could get a single syllable out Cecil was all but pouncing on him, dropping his work bag to the floor and fretting like some kind of odd species of bird over its nesting young.

“Oh. Oh, _no_. This isn’t that strain of bubonic plague that was going around last month, is it?!” He reached up and felt Carlos’ forehead.

Carlos swatted his arm lightly. “Cecil, I’m _fine_ —” His hoarse voice betrayed him slightly, but he was cut off, anyway:

“—You know, the officials at the Health Board said that after, like, 20 or so people died of it that we were totally safe, but I _never_ believed them. I tried to interview them but the invisible security officer at the front of the building chased me off—and now you’re _dying_ and oh my _God_ , Carlos.”

And, inexplicably at least to Carlos, Cecil’s eyes—all three of them—began to fill with tears. And for some reason that, above all else, made Carlos start to feel as bad as he apparently looked.

“Oh. No, no. Cecil. Honey. _No_.” Not wanting to get the other sick, he simply placed his hand on Cecil’s knee. “I’m fine! Really. It’s just a cold!”

Cecil blinked. “A…a cold?” he stammered.

“Yes. Just a run-of-the-mill common cold. I promise. One of my assistants had one last week and I must have caught it. That’s all.” He gently ran his hand up and down Cecil’s leg in an attempt to reassure him.

And apparently it worked, because Cecil clasped his hands together, expression brightening immediately. “You’re _kidding_ ,” he all but squealed, “It’ll be just like in the movies!”

Um, thought Carlos, before he said, “Um,” for lack of anything else he could possibly think to say.

Cecil cocked his head to the side. “You know,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a toddler (the toddler being Carlos, which, frankly, the scientist did not appreciate), “when a person ‘comes down with a cold’”—he used air quotes—“and someone else has to take care of them, sometimes reluctantly, and maybe they fall in love or something. Or like, in the cartoons when one of the fluffy animals sneezes and sends the other one _flying_.” He chuckled, mostly to himself, then concluded: “Like that! Movies! I mean, because obviously colds aren’t real.”

Frankly, Carlos was tired enough and Cecil’s voice was soothing enough as he was explaining his affinity for chick flicks and cartoons, that he had been tuning out a bit. Until the part about colds not being real, of course.

“Wait,” he said, and, hoping he wouldn’t regret asking: “What? I mean, don’t you—haven’t you ever had one?”

“No. And I certainly don’t know anybody who has.”

“But haven’t— _achoo_!” Carlos sneezed into his arm. Cecil scrunched up his nose. “Haven’t you ever had all of these symptoms? Runny nose, headache, cough...”

“Well, of _course_ ,” answered Cecil in a tone very overtly dripping with _duh_ , “But it usually leads to something else. Like the plague, or flesh-eating bacteria, consumption . . . ” He trailed off, waving his hand absently.

Carlos leaned forward onto his knees, brow furrowed. This was usually his indicator to Cecil that he Needed A Moment. So Cecil muttered, “Ah. Okay,” and sat patiently for a few long, grueling moments.

Finally, Carlos mustered enough energy to croak, “So either I’m going to be dying of an eighteenth-century illness in a few hours or…” Sniff. “I don’t know what.”

He sighed, leaning his head back against the sofa. It didn’t make sense. Everyone got colds. That was the whole point of calling it ‘common.’ The virus constantly mutated so that people couldn’t _stop_ getting sick with it, no matter how many medicinal treatments came along.

Unless…

Carlos sat back up abruptly, looking at Cecil who was texting Old Woman Josie about how his boyfriend has a _cold_ , and do you believe that, Old Woman Josie, a _cold_ , have your angels explain _that_ one.

“Cecil.”

“Hmm?”

“You say you’ve never had a cold, and you don’t know _anyone_ who has?”

Cecil looked up from his phone. “Yeah. Of course. People don’t _get_ those. It’s like…it’s like in those horror flicks when people die of those weird airborne diseases. Totally never gonna happen.”

“But it does. Colds are a real thing, Cecil. And I think, with all the weird things that happen in this town—and apparently the resurgence of long-dead infectious diseases I’m pretty sure _should not_ be a thing—that Night Vale citizens are somehow immune to getting colds!” Carlos stood up, and Cecil warily watched him teeter a bit on his feet as he turned back to his boyfriend. “Ooh. This is _fascinating._ I mean, I can get sick, and my team of scientists can get sick, because we’re not from here. And meanwhile there are just… _rhinopharyngitis_ germs floating around, in all kinds of strains, and you guys can’t even _catch_ them! You’ve built up immunity to the common cold! Oh. Oh, I’ve studied your blood cells before, Ceec, but I’d love to study them again now that I…now that…”

Oh. Feeling a bit woozy, Carlos sat back down again with a _flop_.

Cecil was looking at him like he was the saddest woodland creature in the forest. “My sweet, sweet Carlos.” He leaned over and kissed Carlos’ forehead. “To be honest, I lost you at ‘rhinoceros.’”

“ _Rhinopharyngitis_ ,” Carlos corrected glumly, sniffling a few times.

“What I _do_ understand, however, is that you need to rest. I can take care of you!” Cecil beamed, and Carlos couldn’t help but smile a bit because his boyfriend was completely ecstatic over the fact that Carlos had snot coming out of his nose in full force, and this was his life now, wasn’t it?

“You don’t have to,” he said, feeling suddenly shy at Cecil’s doting presence, “I’ll be fine. We outsiders deal with colds all the time. Mostly, I just need to rest, I think. And drink lots of water. Hydration is very important.”

Cecil ran a hand through Carlos’ hair, and involuntarily, Carlos let his heavy eyes flutter shut. “What’s the cure?” Cecil asked. “Medicine? Herbs? Animal sacrifice?”

His eyes popped open. “What?! No. No animal sacrifices. God. Wow.”

“Okay, good, because those are awful, and what have animals ever done to anyone, anyway?”

Carlos tried to say, “I agree,” but instead ended up in a fit of coughing. Cecil wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. Carlos sighed, sniffling into the crook of Cecil’s neck.

“There is no cure,” he managed after a few seconds of catching his breath.

“Oh my God.” Cecil’s reply came out more like a squeak than a human(oid) voice. “You’re _totally_ going to die.”

“ _Ceec_. I’m not going to—” He sat up again, shaking his head incredulously at Cecil’s panicked expression. “I’ll explain how the virus works later, okay? I think I’m gonna go lie down. Maybe you can make us both some tea?”

Cecil nodded eagerly. “I can do that.” He stood up, not before carding his fingers through Carlos’ hair one more time, and Carlos could hear him muttering, “A cold… _neat_ ,” to himself as he walked away.

*

After a couple of hours of disappearing and reappearing in the room to fawn over him, Cecil finally joined Carlos in bed, wrapping his arms around Carlos from behind. His skin was warm, and Carlos snuggled into the touch.

“Carlos?”

“Yeah, Ceec?"

“This is a really gross thing to have.”

“I know, Cecil.”

“Like, _really_ gross. I’m really glad I can’t catch it.”

“I’m very happy for you, Cecil.”

“Oops. That sounded unsympathetic. Sorry. Do you want some water or anything?”

“No. Just you.”

“Okay. Carlos?”

“Yes, Cecil?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’d really like to go to sleep now, though.”

“Oh! Damn. Keep forgetting this is a cold and not a head wound or something where you have to keep the person awake—”

“Good night, Cecil.”

“…Carlos.”

“ _Yes_ , Cecil.”

“You’re _sure_ you don’t have the plague?”

He was going to have to work from home tomorrow.

*

“And now, listeners, a short editorial.

“Apparently—and it shocked me as much as I imagine it will shock you to hear this—the so-called ‘common cold’ we’ve read about in science fiction books does, indeed, exist. Carlos, who has been suffering from one this week, my poor darling, has discovered upon various blood cell analyses that Night Vale is, apparently, immune to such a disease.

“Carlos, being an outsider, of course, is not. So I’ve been taking care of him! Just in case any of you listeners out there should ever need to care for a loved one with this rare but perilous illness, I’ve compiled a comprehensive list of Tips for Caring for Your Sniffling Scientist.

  1.       Do. Not. Panic. First of all, Night Vale citizens have built up immunity in their very make-up—their cells, against the disease, so it won’t be contagious to you. Secondly, it is not a life-or-death situation. Carlos calmly explained to me that it’s simply a nonthreatening virus that goes away in a week or so.
  2.       It’s not the plague.
  3.       It’s not like the movies. Like, not at all. _Way_ less glamorous. I don’t even know how that much _stuff_ can come out of a person’s _nasal canal._
  4.       Your loved one most likely needs rest to ward off the intensity of the symptoms. Avoid keeping him up all night asking him questions. He’ll be polite and answer them, but inside he kind of feels like the personification of death itself, so, yeah. Don’t do that.
  5.       Also try to keep from reminding your loved one how gross they are at the moment. I mean, it’s true. They’re _really_ gross. And sniffly. And all their ‘n’s sound like ‘d’s which makes them hard to understand. But don’t remind them, Cecil; they _know_ , okay?
  6.       It is _not_ the plague.
  7.       Carlos is really cute when he’s snoring. This information isn’t helpful to you at all; I just thought I’d share.
  8.       While performing ancient healing chants with shakers and bloodstones usually works for diseases we in Night Vale are familiar with, it does not for the common cold. Do not perform ancient tribal rituals. Your boyfriend will be very confused, and subsequently annoyed after about an hour or so.
  9.       Keep lots of tissues around. I learned very early on in this process that the tissues should _not_ be the flesh-dissolving ones they sell at Wal-Mart. Discard those. Seriously.
  10.    Most important is to show your loved one you care, and that you’ll do anything to help make them feel better. Unlike most diseases we face on the daily, which are usually life-threatening and often life-ending, we can move past this, Night Vale! Together with our outsider friends!



Hope this helps, listeners! Keep my list in mind should you ever need to care for your cold-induced loved one. Carlos, if you’re listening; I hope you’re feeling better. I’m bringing home Chicken Wheat-Free Noodle soup for you later. And now, a word from our sponsors…”

Carlos was, indeed, listening as he studied results of some more blood tests his team had e-mailed to him. He had not appreciated the (very personal) reference to his snoring.

Nonetheless, he sent the text, “Feeling better thanks to you x” to Cecil, though in truth it was not thanks to Cecil at all but to many naps during the day and lots, lots more tea that his illness was taking less of a toll on him.

But Cecil was trying. He really was. Trying to wrap his head around what Carlos was dealing with, just as Carlos attempted to figure out just what the heck was _ever_ going on in this town.

Carlos the Scientist had a cold in a place where you couldn’t get colds. His other-worldly boyfriend, despite thinking that he’s “really gross” right now, spent all night making sure he was okay, oftentimes to dangerous extents.

(“Are you _sure_ you don’t want me to call down the Greek goddess of healing because all it takes is a blood sacrifice, preferably an appendage, and I can just cut off my left arm, I don’t even like that one anyway--”

“Oh, my God. Cecil. Please just get me some ginger ale.”)

Carlos sneezed into a non-skin-eating tissue. His phone buzzed with a message from Cecil checking in complete with twelve heart emojis.

He sniffled, and smiled. Things could be worse.


End file.
